This invention relates to battery plates, and more particularly, to an improvement in the method of producing said plates. In producing battery plates, it is desirable to produce plates which are capable of carrying high currents for rapid charging and output performance, while at the same time reducing their weight and size. The present invention teaches the production of battery plates which have a reduced internal resistance over present lead-antimony plates and which are smaller in size and weight.
In my copending application Ser. No. 313,835, filed Dec. 11, 1972, now abandoned, I describe in detail a method for producing an aluminum storage battery plate by dipping a relatively pure aluminum core into a solution of sodium hydroxide and, preferably either zinc oxide or zinc chloride, for the purpose of simultaneously removing the aluminum oxide coating on the core and replacing it with a pure zinc layer. It is desirable to accomplish both the oxide removal and the zinc plating simultaneously because the aluminum oxide tends to reform immediately. The zinc layer is utilized to obtain subsequent deposition of a lead coating either with or without a precoating of silver. The zinc and silver precoatings are necessary because it is not possible, by chemical deposition techniques, to deposit lead directly onto aluminum.